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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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should lire ungodly , tmd tm which he makes the following observation : € The Lord knoweth how to tleliver the godly out of temptation , and to reserve the ttnjtist unto the day of judgment to be punished . " He then refers to the history of Balaam , and compares the men of whom he is speaking with him , who , he says , iorsaKeii
nave me rigni way , ana gone astray , following the way of Balaam , the son of Bosof , who loved the wages of unrighteousness ^ " Jude introduces his enumeration of the judgments of God in the punishment of the 'wicked , by saying , " I will therefore put you in remembrancey though ye once knew this . " First , he reminds
them , " How that the Lord , having saved the people out of the land of Egypt , afterward destroyed them which believed not . " In the next place , he reminds them of the angels which kept not their first estate . Did he then mean to remind them of a
fabulous story about angels , which had no foundation in truth , which he had ( as is supposed ) taken out of a spurious apocryphal book , a story with which they were probably wholly
unacquainted ? And what could a story of the fall of angels have to do with the writer ' s subject , as an instance of the punishment of ungodly men and seuucers ? Jude reminds them in the next place of the destruction of Sodom and
Gomorrah , and the cities about them , which , he says , are set forth as an example , suffering the vengeance of eternal fire . And then , having described those ungodly men of whom he speaks as defiling the flesh , despising dominion ,
blaspheming ( or , as Peter expresses it , who were not afraid to blaspheme ) dignities , he reminds them of the contest between Michael the archangel and the Devil , contrasting their conduct with that of Michael . He also
refers to the history of Cain , and of Balaam , and of Core , saying , ** Wo unto them ! for they" ( the ungodly men of whom he is speaking ) ** have gone in the way of Cain , and run greedily after the error of Balaam , for reward , and perished , or wkl perish in the gainsaying of Core . "
Now , is it possible to conceive that these writers , in referring to a 6 eriey of facts recorded in their own Scriptures , and with which they were well
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acquainted , should introduce and incorporate with those facts a fabulous story from an apocryphal book ? N ^ thing , surely , can be more incredible than such a supposition , even supposing the Epistles were proved not to be genuine .
Secondly , the attthors of the Improved Version , after having pronounced the passage respecting the angels that sinned , in 2 Peter ii . 4 , to be the most douit / kl portion in the Epistle , and after having repeatedly thrown out the supposition that it ,
with the parallel passage in Jude , was quoted from an apocryphal book , have themselves , with the most glaring inconsistency , attempted to explain those passages as having no relation to angels ; and they have also attempted to prove that they are a plain , direct
allusion to a portion of the Jewish history , in which , I conceive , they liave been completely successful . Their exposition is as follows . 2 Pet . ii . 4 , Note : * ' If God spared not the messengers who had sinned , i . e . the spies who were sent to explore the land of Canaan , &c .: see bimpson ' s
Essays , p / 205 , &c . " Jude 6 : " And the angels who kept not their first state . " Note on the passage : " Or the messengers who watched not duly over their own principality , but deserted their proper habitation , he kept with perpetual chains under darkness , ( punished them with judicial
blindness of mind , ) unto the judgment of a great day , i . e . when they were destroyed by a , plague ; alluding to the falsehood and punishment of the spies , Numbers xiv . See Simpson ' s Essays , p . 210 . ' ? - But the allusion
would have been still more apparent , and their interpretation more firmly established , had they , or had the authors of the Received Version , rendered the Greek -r #$ ctfyeXs *; , the spies , as the latter have rendered it , James
ii . 25 , and as they themselves have explained it in 2 Peter ii . 4 . A little more attention would probably have convinced the authors of the Improved Version , that the passage in Jude respecting Michael and the Devil , also is taken from one of the Jewish
prophets , and not from a fabulous apocryphal book . Which leads me to observe , Thirdly , that that passage in Jude
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602 Attempt to illustrate Jude , ver . 9 . Letter I .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1822, page 602, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2517/page/18/
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